Life
Evliya Çelebi was born in Constantinople in 1611 to a family from Kütahya. His father was Derviş Mehmed Zilli, a jeweller for the Ottoman court. His mother was a tribeswoman, a relative of the later grand vizier Melek Ahmed Pasha. Coming from a wealthy family, he received a court education by the Imperial ulema. He may have joined the Gülşenî sufi order; evidence for this claim comes from his intimate knowledge of its lodge in Cairo and from a graffito referring to himself as "Evliya-yı Gülşenî" (Evliya of the Gülşenî). He began his travels in Constantinople, taking notes on buildings, markets, customs and culture; in 1640, he started his first journey outside the city. His collection of notes from all of his travels formed a ten-volume work called the Seyahatname (Book of Travels). He lived by his wits, providing religious knowledge and entertainment to Ottoman grandees. He fought the Hapsburgs in Transylvania. While he was a devout Muslim who could recite the Koran, he was opposed to fanaticism and joked freely about Islam. Çelebi refused to take an official job that would keep him from travelling.
He died sometime after 1682; it is unclear whether he was in Constantinople or Cairo at the time.
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